Hope
Galmarini
Dr.
Brown
Eng.
306- Research Paper Pt. 1
3
November 2016
HIV/AIDS and the ACT UP
Movement-Historical/Rhetorical Context
Rarely can a sickness completely change
a culture, but HIV/AIDS has continued to change what it means to be gay in
America. The affects of the pandemic to America’s gay population was so
dramatic that many oppositional AIDS activist groups found it necessary to
fight for their right to visibility and to urge the scientific community to
pursue research for a cure. The amount of grief and pain felt by the gay
community reverberated around the world, and has made the AIDS crisis a
predominant moment in history.
Firstly,
what is HIV/AIDS? HIV/AIDS is an autoimmune disorder. It begins as a virus
called human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which is spread through certain
bodily fluids. If not treated properly, HIV can form into acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. Unlike other viruses, HIV can not be fought
off naturally by the human body which makes the virus incredibly lethal.
Currently there is no known cure for the disease, but with proper care one can
live with HIV ("About
HIV/AIDS." Center for Disease Control).
It
is important to understand the historical context in which AIDS entered gay
culture in America before one can understand the ramifications of the HIV/AIDS
pandemic, and what the HIV/AIDS crisis meant to the American gay community, in
particular, the oppositional activist groups fighting for visibility and
funding for research. The protest
movement revolving around the AIDS crisis was a direct effect of the grief and
pain reverberating throughout the gay community, and changed the face of the
American gay community forever.
In
June of 1981 five gay men in Los Angeles, California where diagnosed with a rare
condition called Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, or PCP. Two out of the five
had died shortly after being diagnosed. Months later this would be recognized
as America’s first encounter with AIDS (A Crisis of Meaning). Almost a year
later Americans would finally understand what this disease was: HIV/AIDS. On
September 24, 1982 the Center for Disease Control finally publicly releases information
regarding the pandemic. However, for many it was too late. By the end of 1981,
one hundred and twenty one individuals had died out of the two hundred and
seventy reported cases of what was then called ‘gay cancer’. It was referred to
as ‘gay cancer’ because it was so wildly misunderstood and thus far in the
crisis it was affecting predominately gay men, thus causing the misconception
that HIV/AIDS is a ‘gay disease’ ( A Timeline of HIV/AIDS).
While
HIV/AIDS was affecting predominately the gay community of the United States, by
November of 1983 the World Health Organization held its first meeting to assess
the AIDS crisis on a global scale (A Timeline of HIV/AIDS). The death toll was
high and ever increasing, and still there was no solution. Research was at an
all time halt, which was a direct result of the political atmosphere at the
time in many nations. Back in the United States, HIV/AIDS was a topic that was
not being discussed. It truly became a disease of silence. The United States
government had continued to fail the dying people of America’s gay community.
In
March of 1987 ACT UP was founded in New York City by activist Larry Kramer. By
this time, around 20,000 people had died of the disease. (Gould, Deborah B.. Moving Politics).
New York City was home to a large
gay community, and by 1987 the death toll was so high that AIDS was personally
affecting many individuals. Entire social circles were diminishing. People were
losing friends, lovers, and the community as a whole. ACT UP was one of the
first protest groups formed in response to the AIDS crisis. By May of
1987 President Ronald Reagan made his first public speech regarding AIDS, after
years of criticism for his silence and lack of administrative funding. Many
link Reagan’s sudden action as a result of ACT UP’s plea for recognition and
visibility. President Reagan’s decision to finally speak publicly about the
AIDs crisis urged the rest of the United States political realm to start
‘acting’ on the pandemic (Gould, Deborah).
President Reagan’s relationship with
the gay community is an integral piece of the overall narrative regarding the
AIDS crisis and the American gay community, since groups like ACT UP were
created in direct response to his inaction. Not only did Reagan wait until 1987
when over twenty thousand gay men had already died of AIDS to publicly speak on
the matter, he previously made legislative decisions that directly affected gay
men in America. In 1986, a year before his notable speech, Reagan proposed a
change in the federal budget: to decrease AIDS funding by 11 percent. This
legislative decision led to the change of the federal budget from $95 million
dollars to go to research and hospice facilities for those who were sick, to
$85.5 million dollars within a year (Plante, Hank.
"Reagan's Legacy”). Reagan’s behavior in response to the AIDS crisis was
commonly seen as a result of Reagan’s rhetoric of the ‘New Right’.
Reagan’s
‘New Right’ was a call to Americans, particularly American families, to return
to ‘traditional family values’. It was the ultimate form of conservatism, and
led to a new sort of cult of personality where conservatives could completely align
themselves with Reagan. Reagan’s ‘New Right’ was in direct response to social
movements during the 1960’s and 1970’s, this extends to homosexuality which was
seen as simply a counter cultural movement. In Jennifer Brier’s book, Infectious Ideas Brier discusses this
idea of the New Right, which she says directly affected Reagan’s decision
making in regards to the AIDS crisis. This new world of conservatism was in
direct opposition to gay and lesbian ‘lifestyles’, along with Nancy Reagan’s
notable ‘war on drugs’. Reagan’s presidency called for America to go back to
‘traditional family values’, therefore many scholars agree that Reagan’s lack
of response to the AIDs crisis was part of a larger conservative attack against
counter cultural movements, which extended to racial, gender, and sexual
minorities (Brier,
Jennifer. Infectious Ideas).
As a result of oppositional AIDS activist
groups like ACT UP, President Reagan was pressured to begin making national,
legislative decisions about the crisis. Many of these decisions created divides
in the political realm, and led to inaction for those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
After Reagan’s speech in 1987, the United States government began working to
find a prevention program to educate the masses on what the disease was and how
to halt the spread. Reagan’s education and religion advisors, predominately
Gary Baur, William Bennett, and Carl Anderson urged the administration to take
the definitive ‘New Right’ stance on the issue: shun homosexuality and teach
abstinence only education. However, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop strongly
disagreed with Reagan’s other advisors and pressured the administration to
focus solely on rational science, and to address the issue by discussing the
populous on safe sexual practices, the dangers of drug use, and to facilitate
condom distribution to at risk communities. The fundamental political disagreements
caused the 1986 budget cut for HIV/AIDs research, due to criticism of the
administration for behaving in a way that was in direct opposition to the ‘New
Right’s idea of economic conservatism. Other executive decisions made by the
Reagan administration in response to the AIDS crisis, in the name of the ‘New
Right’, pertained to halting immigration into the United States. (Brier,
Jennifer. Infectious Ideas).
While the United States government
was struggling to come to a concise solution to the AIDS crisis, ACT UP was
created in the fall of 1987. ACT UP, or the ‘AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power’,
was founded in New York City. Previous to ACT UP, there was another group
created by activist Larry Kramer called ‘Gay Men’s Health Crisis’. In reference
to ACT UP, Larry Kramer in an interview with PBS said:
ACT UP was started in 1987. There was
no way that Gay Men's Health Crisis was going to be at all political or a loud
voice. It was very much a pastoral organization. All of the people who worked
there were not political people; they were caregivers. It was like a church
organization really. These were not people who would go out there and protest
and make noise, and I got very angry at them for that. ("Interview Larry Kramer." Interview)
ACT
UP, keeping true to the name, was created directly in opposition to the
political silence reverberating through the United States. Reagan waited until
twenty thousand people had already died before he spoke publicly about the
pandemic. On top of this, decisions were not being made in regards to educating
the populous about the disease or a possible cure. Worst of all, research
funding was at an all time minimal.
When
dissecting the oppositional protest movements surrounding the AIDS crisis, it
is necessary to discuss what led to the creation of ACT UP and what mobilized
the group. By this time in the AIDS crisis, thousands of people had died and
many more were sick and afraid. In Deborah Gould’s book ‘Moving Politics:
Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight against AIDS, Gould collected a large amount of
research into the emotional impact the crisis had on the gay community and
argues that this was particularly what motivated the creation of ACT UP. While
illustrating the pain reverberating throughout the community Gould states:
We were constantly
aware of the deaths that were devastating our lesbian, gay, queer communities; grief
was never really absent. Still, as a movement, we did not dwell on it, and we
certainly were not overwhelmed by it, at least not consciously and at least not
in the early years. In the tumult of that time, we had had little time to reflect
on what we were going through; we thought we only had time to act. (Gould, Deborah B.. Moving Politics)
Time
was certainly a commodity for the gay community. With so many members of the
gay community dying, and many more sick, Gould states that the gay community
hit a wall; there was no more time to grieve. This is how emotion motivated the
creation of oppositional protest movements. Slogans like “don’t mourn,
organize” were common during this time of protest. Gould, in her research found
that anger in particular was the driving emotion felt throughout ACT UP
members. In meetings she attended, it was common for someone to yell out in
rage, “People are dying!” to truly exaggerate the intensity of the crisis. This
rage felt throughout the gay community left no emotional space for grief;
action needed to be taken.
ACT
UP, and other oppositional activist groups fighting for visibility and funding
for research during this time were set apart from other protest movements. Gould
discusses this in “Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight against AIDS”
stating that prior to the AIDS crisis protest movements were directly in
response to social changes that create a shift in the previously established
social order. Meaning, that ACT UP was a revolutionary protest movement,
because it didn’t hold its foundation in social and political happenings. ACT
UP’s relationship to the political and social world could be seen as
responsive, but Gould states that ACT UP’s beginnings were despite and because
of “…tightly constricted political
opportunities”. Gould sites that the movement lacked when it came to
“…meaningful access to power and influential allies, and they benefited from no
significant splits in the ruling alignment or cleaves among elites” (Gould,
Deborah B. Moving Politics).
To
completely understand ACT UP’s oppositional movement it is important to
understand the identity of the movement. Throughout the years, AIDS
predominately affected gay men and later it was discovered to have the capacity
to affect women, children, drug abusers, and straight individuals regardless of
gender. However, the common understanding was that gay men suffered from AIDS.
In Steven Schwartzberg’s book “How Gay Men Are Making Sense of AIDS”
Schwartzberg highlights the experiences of gay men, particularly gay men
diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. The book begins with quotes from the five men whose
narrative creates the entirety of the book. “HIV is my blessing—I thank God he
gave me this blessing to help me grow. –Francis”
Schwartzberg,
while creating the identity of the HIV positive gay men in America, also
describes the beginnings of AIDS oppositional protest movements. Schwartzberg
described one of his first experiences at a gay pride parade, which became
common during the beginnings of the AIDS crisis, as:
I
happened to be sitting on the curb when the dense throngs of the AIDS groups marched by. The vast range of what HIV has
triggered in us was, quite literally, paraded
before me. A large spiritual group led the way. One hundred or so strong, they filled the air with lovely,
beatific chanting and the seductive clatter of finger- cymbals and tambourines. On their heels ran ACT UP,
storming justness of their cause. (Schwartzberg,
Steven. Crisis of Meaning)
Following
this description of oppositional protest groups marching in a gay pride parade,
Schwartzberg describes the variety of gay men marching in this parade. Men full
of sadness and fear, and men who have found a new found capacity to enjoy life
in the face of their illness. (Schwartzberg, Steven. Crisis of Meaning).
In
face of this tragic pandemic that was the HIV/AIDS crisis, the gay community
remained to be a community of diversity. The AIDS crisis did affect the
identity of the gay community in comparison to how it was previous to the
crisis, however it created a strength very unique to the gay community
especially the oppositional AIDS activist groups. Driven by their pain and
anger, groups like ACT UP fought for visibility and funding for research. The
identity of the gay community became more varied, now possessing strength and
visibility like never before…Even in the face of HIV/AIDS.
Works
Cited
"About HIV/AIDS." Center
for Disease Control. U.S. Department of Health and Safety, 21 Sept. 2016.
Web. 22 Oct. 2016. Scientific context. Protest Context.
Brier,
Jennifer. Infectious Ideas. Chapel Hill, US: The University of North Carolina
Press, 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 22 October 2016. Scholarly Source.
Historical Context.
Gould,
Deborah B.. Moving Politics : Emotion and ACT UP's Fight against AIDS.
University of Chicago Press, 2009. 24 October 2016.
<http://www.myilibrary.com?ID=244560>
Theoretical. Scholarly Source.
"Interview Larry Kramer."
Interview by FRONTLINE. PBS. PBS, 22 Jan. 2005. Web. 22 Oct. 2016.
Community Identity. Protest Context. Serious New Article.
Plante, Hank. "Reagan's
Legacy." San Francisco AIDS Foundation. SFAF, 21 Mar. 2016. Web. 22
Oct. 2016. Historical Context. Serious Article.
Schwartzberg, Steven. Crisis of Meaning
: How Gay Men Are Making Sense of AIDS. Cary, US: Oxford University Press (US),
1996. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 22 October 2016. Community/Identity. Scholarly
Source.
